The Tale of Arwen And Aragorn
by Morwen Tindomerel
Summary: The beginning of the romance of the age. It wasn't quite like Barahir wrote.
1. Homecoming

The sight of her dear, familiar nessamelda tree brought a smile to Arwen's face. Impulsively she slipped from her horse's back, tossing the reins to Elrohir as he paused to look back at her. "I'm going to walk across the valley. Take care of Isfin for me please, brother." He caught the reins, laughed and continued on after Elladan who was smiling indulgently as everybody always did at her whims.

She climbed her tree settling contentedly into the nest of boughs she'd woven for herself back when both she and the tree were very young for a good long look over the valley of Rivendell. Lorien was fair but Imladris was home. It was good to be back though truly she hadn't been away very long this time, a mere twenty winters or perhaps a little more.

When she'd looked her fill she descended and started down the winding path to the little rushing river that bisected the valley fed by the cascading falls of a dozen mountain streams. The bridges were all farther downstream near the house but she knew a place where the river ran shallow and it was possible to cross dry-shod on rocks. All her favorite places were along this path; her tree; her bathing pool formed by a back eddy of the river; and on the other side of the little ford her dancing lawn.

It was a perfect circle of green sward ringed by dark hemlocks and pale birch trees. A bird hidden in the boughs sang, its voice blending with that of the waters. Arwen danced to the music, light hearted and light footed with the joy of homecoming. The bird flew away, she laughed and started to follow and was checked by an unexpected cry:

"Tinuviel!"

She whirled, heart in mouth, to see a man standing in the shadow of the trees. He took a step forward into the sunlight one hand extended as if to stay her, "Tinuviel." She saw at once he was a Man not an Elf but the light in his eye and the shape of his face proclaimed him one of the Line of Isildur and her remote kin. There was nothing to be afraid of, no reason at all for her heart to pound so.

She produced a smile, "Beren?"

"Would that I were," he answered, eyes shining. "But alas, I am merely Estel."

"And I am but Arwen." He smiled and her heart gave a great leap, catching her breath in her throat. What was the matter with her?

"Welcome home, Lady! They are making great preparations for your reception up at the house."

"And yet I find you here?" she wondered.

His smile became a wry grin. "I was given a choice between weaving garlands with the maidens and playing accompaniment for Lindhir as he practiced his song of welcome."

She laughed, a little breathlessly. "And so you ran away? I would have done the same." she held out her hand to him he bent and kissed it.

Many men had done as much but none had sent a tingle racing up her arm or caused the blood to rise warmly in her cheeks as it did now. She felt giddy and bewildered. She wanted to laugh and sing for joy and to cry as she had never cried in all her long years. She wanted to stand here forever with this man's hand in hers staring into his eyes. And she wanted to run far, far away and never see him again. What was wrong with her?

…..

Arwen climbed the steps to the terrace outside her rooms alone but with a hand still warm from his clasp telling herself she was just glad to be home and pleased to meet so handsome and charming a kinsman nothing more - nothing to be frightened about. Entering her rooms she dropped her cloak on a chair and bent to inspect herself in the mirror. She had rather more color than usual but her hair was a mess.

Reaching up she began to undo the braids only to have her hands unexpectedly slapped aside. "You're making it worse, let me."

"Ellian!" joyfully Arwen turned to embrace her friend.

"You have kept us all waiting a half hour at least." Ellian teased. "But a few moments more won't matter. We might as well fix your hair and change your dress too while we're about it. You've been climbing trees haven't you?"

"Only the one," Arwen answered.

She sat on the stool before the dressing table and watched in the mirror as Ellian unbraided and combed out her hair with practiced skill. They might almost have been sisters for they had the same coloring; soft black hair, eyes the deep blue of a summer night's sky, complexions like the white petals of the niphredil blossom. Ellian was, perhaps, not so beautiful. Or maybe it was just a different kind of beauty. For she was Mortal, a princess of the Dunedain, descended through many generations from Elros Half-Elven, twin brother to Elrond of Rivendell.

"I met a Man in the valley." Arwen said suddenly, "a kinsman of yours by the look of him. He called himself Estel."

In the mirror she saw Ellian nod recognition. "That must have been Aragorn, my nephew."

"Why have I never seen him before?" Arwen asked.

Her friend laughed, "Because he wasn't born yet of course! You've been away a full two and twenty years. Aragorn is but twenty."

Was he so young then? "He is very beautiful." Arwen said and immediately wanted to bite her tongue, as if she'd given something away.

Happily Ellian didn't see anything significant in the comment. "You think so do you?" she laughed. "Wait until you see my Belecthor, tall as his father and fair as his mother!"

"Oh!" suddenly Arwen remembered and twisted around on her stool pulling her hair out of Ellian's hands. "Oh how could I forget, Arador is dead - and Belegorn too! Your father and husband both at once." She looked up at Ellian, eyes filling. "I am so sorry! I wanted to come back to be with you but Grandfather wouldn't allow it. He said it was too dangerous."

"Celeborn was right." Ellian replied with a brisk hug. "The passes weren't at all safe and none of us want you risking your mother's fate." She turned Arwen firmly back to face the mirror and resumed work on her hair. "You would have been most welcome but truly there was little you could have done." She hesitated a moment before continuing; "You heard about Arathorn as well?"

She had not. "What? Oh no, not him too!"

Ellian nodded, "Only a few years later. Aragorn is his son. He was just two at the time."

Tears slid silently down Arwen's cheeks. She'd heard such news before, all too many times. It had always grieved her but never frightened her before nor did she understand why it should now. The fear loomed beyond the edge of her thought too great and monstrous to be faced.

"Arwen!" dismayed Ellian stopped combing to put her arms around her friend. "I didn't mean to spoil your homecoming. Our lives are always brief, you know that." she held Arwen closer, rocking her as Celebrian, her mother, had done long, long ago when she was a child. "It is not how much time we have but how we use it that counts." Ellian crooned. "My father and husband and brother used theirs well. They will be remembered. And they left sons to follow them. That is our kind of immortality."

Drying her eyes Arwen looked at her friend and realized something else: "You've changed."

Ellian smiled, and it was like Celebrian's remembered smile, that of a mother not a maiden. "Of course I have. I've taken a husband and lost him, run a holding and raised two children. I've grown up." She gave Arwen another hug. "But don't worry my Beruthiel is just of an age to make a playmate for you. She's eager to meet you."

Arwen turned again to face the mirror filled with a sorrow beyond tears, she had lost her friend. That too had happened before. The daughters of the House of Isildur had been her playmates and companions as long as she could remember. For a few years they'd be close as sisters but then the Mortal girl would change, chose a new life and move on leaving Arwen behind. Odd… she'd never thought of it like that before. Suddenly it seemed to her as if she were a flower floating on the still surface of her bathing pool while the river of Imladris rushed by carrying Ellian, and all the girls before her, to new places and new lives. It was a strange, sad thought as if she was missing something, for the first time in her nearly three thousand years of life Arwen Undomiel found herself wondering what it would be like to leave her father's house; to live somewhere else with someone else.

…

Estel had a tree too, a large and ancient beech growing on the riverbank a mile or so above the House. Arwen sat beside him on a crude platform slung between three branches and overhanging the water. Its creaking, uneven surface softened by layers of worn and weather faded rugs, both munching on apples as the setting sun shone through the river cleft tinting the whole valley gold.

"Berya, Meleth and I built it when I was eight," Aragorn explained. "Then the others came and we let them in on the secret."

"And you would steal apples and come here to eat them," Arwen finished. She pitched her core into the river below and looked at him. "Why not just ask for the apples?"

"Where's the sport in that?" He grinned, tossing away his own core. "Besides, they might have said no. Grownups often did."

Arwen thought back. "Not to me."

"That I do believe," Estel said, amused. He took another bite of his apple and when he'd swallowed continued; "Our mothers and especially Grandmother were far less indulgent than the Elves. And I don't doubt Uncle is far stricter with his fosterlings than he ever was with his daughter."

Arwen frowned. "That doesn't seem fair."

He shook his head. "When I was young I would have agreed with you. But Uncle is right. We Isildurioni are destined for hard lives. We need a hard discipline."

Arwen's heart contracted painfully. She hated to be reminded of the difference between them and of the hardships and dangers Estel would endure as a Ranger.

He must have seen it in her face for his tone quickly turned light again. "Besides there was only one of you - and you can't have been as naughty a child as the five of us were!"

"What did you do?" she asked, fascinated.

He laughed. "What didn't we do; knocked hands and noses off statues, built cities out of the books in Uncle's library, daubed the frescoes with watercolors, tracked river mud through every room, kept kestrels in the summer tower and put pike in the lily pool, climbed the pergolas and dug holes in the garden!"

"And I missed it," Arwen mourned. "If only I'd come home sooner!" Never had she been so painfully aware of the inexorable passage of time. Already she had lost twenty years of his life. At best he had no more than a hundred eighty or ninety more and then - her mind shied desperately away from completing the thought.

"We'd have made your life a misery," he was saying. "Frogs in your bed, birds' eggs down your back, honey in your hair. You'd have hated the lot of us.

"Not you." she denied, looking into eyes that sometimes seemed grey, sometimes blue, but always with that elusive spark of starfire shimmering in their depths, "never you." The evening breeze down from the mountains caught up her long hair, blowing it forward around her face so the soft ends tickled his.

"I suppose you would have gotten over it," he conceded huskily, "Eventually, when I was an old, old man." His breath came ragged, as if he'd been running.

She was having trouble breathing too, drowning in those eyes. Slowly, almost without the will of either, they leaned closer. "I've already lost too much time," she whispered, to herself rather than him. Then their lips touched and there were no more words.

…..

Arwen climbed the steps to her terrace and entered her darkened chambers. She bent to light a lamp and a voice said out of the shadows; "I will thank you not to break my grandson's heart, Arwen Undomiel."

Her hand jerked, almost knocking over the lamp, and she spun to see a tall woman sitting on her bed. "Ellemir!" Arwen put a hand to her throat to still her pounding pulse. "What are you talking about? I'm not breaking anyone's heart!"

The Lady of the Dunedain rose, moving forward into the light. She had a distinct look of Arwen's father, the same grey eyes under winged brows. And she was beautiful, but grim with the hard experience of many long years. She looked stern, almost angry and Arwen had to work hard not to quail before her.

"One does not cure a young man's infatuation by paying attention to him!" Ellemir snapped. "And you know it as well as I, what is the matter with you, Arwen? You handled Arathorn and Halbarad beautifully."

"That was different." Arwen husked. It had to be - because if it wasn't then Estel's feelings would change. He'd grow away from her just as Ellian had. Tears filled her eyes and spilled over. Break his heart? He who would break hers!

"Arwen?" Ellemir touched a tear, sparkling in the lamplight, her own face softening with swift pity and dismay. "It seems it is not just Aragorn I should have been worrying about. Can you have you fallen in love with my grandson?"

"Is that so impossible?" Arwen asked a little bitterly, turning away with her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

"Of course not," Ellemir said calmly to her back. "I fell in love with his grandfather didn't I? and I assure you I had no intention of doing any such thing." her lips quirked in a rueful, reminiscent smile. "I was all set to be a second Lady Haleth, a maiden warrior-queen, living only for her people." She gave a short laugh. "The truth was I'd been my own mistress since I was eighteen. I liked my independence and meant to keep it." She shrugged, "Then Arador came and upset all my plans. Of course if he hadn't there would have been no Aragorn and we wouldn't be having this conversation."

No Aragorn. No Estel. Ellemir had finally put into words the fear Arwen had been fighting all these weeks and dragged it into the light where it had to be faced. "He's going to die!" she burst out in passionate terror, "In battle like Arador and Arathorn or of old age. He'll die and I'll never see him again as long as the world lasts!"

"Such is the fate of Men." Ellemir agreed eyeing her closely.

"If Estel dies I want to die too!" Arwen cried frantically.

"Which would solve nothing." the Woman's tone was crisply unsympathetic, bracing. "You are an Elf, Arwen. Living or dead, you are bound to the Circles of the World while we Men are doomed to pass beyond them."

"I am Half-Elven," Arwen contradicted in a hushed, almost frightened whisper. "I can choose to become Mortal if I will." The idea was scarcely less terrifying then the thought of losing Estel.

Ellemir caught her breath, truly shaken. "Is it as serious as that between you?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Arwen, this is your life we are talking about. More than your life, the destiny of your soul," she continued sternly. "It is not a decision to be made lightly or in a moment of passion. If you choose a Mortal life it is your father you will not see again as long as the World lasts, and your mother and your grandparents. You will break their hearts, Arwen, can you to do that to them?"

"Father," she whispered miserably, then; "Ellemir, what am I going to do?"

"You are going to be calm," was the firm, reassuring answer. "You will take your time and think carefully about what you want to do." The Lady smiled grimly. "I promise you, Aragorn is not going to die for many years yet."

Arwen subsided onto the bed, trembling in the aftermath of her emotional outburst. "Take time. Think. Yes, I will do that." She felt calmer already. She was not accustomed to making hard choices or decisions of any kind, it comforted her to think this one could be put off for a time.

"Remember," Ellemir said softly, "all choices bring with them regrets, and that is as true for Elves as it is for Men. Arwen, do you want to tell your father or shall I?" Arwen looked up at her in surprise. "Your decision affects him as well. He should be told and given a chance to prepare himself."

Elrond's daughter looked down at her tightly clasped hands. "I am a coward. You tell him. But say I haven't decided _anything_ yet." She took a deep breath. "When I do decide, I will tell him myself."


	2. Choices

Elrond received his nephew and foster son in his library, a large hall walled by open colonnades supporting galleries overlooking the lower terraces and gardens. The candles in their twining, many branched holders had been lit washing the leather bindings of the books with gold and reflecting in the polished wood of benches and reading desk.

The Master of Rivendell sat in his high backed chair and studied Estel - Aragorn - with a measuring eye. Tall as the Kings of Men of Old with the strong, clear cut features of his House unmarked as yet by time or care… so young, so very young. The eyes that met and held Elrond's gaze were grey as the twilight sky outside and shot with the silvery Elven light that was the visible sign of the Mortal Half-elven. Aragorn's expression was guarded, Elrond thought he knew why and spoke quickly to set his nephew's mind at rest:

"Aragorn, you know already something of the burden you are heir to. For ten centuries the Dunedain of the North, led by the Heirs of Isildur, have fought in secret against the Lord of Mordor, defending the free peoples of the North from enemies they do not even know they have. But soon the time for secrecy will be past." Aragorn's head lifted eyes narrowing, his interest caught. "Nearly a thousand years ago Arvedui, the Last King, was given the chance to reunite the Realms of the Dunedain and overthrow the Dark Lord-"

"It was not his fault that he failed." Arvedui's many times great grandson broke in defensively.

"I did not say that it was." Elrond replied, his face tightening with remembered grief - and anger. "His rights were denied, his claim discarded, and he and his people fell into shadow."

"But from the shadows we have continued the fight." Aragorn reminded him.

"Indeed you have, but at great cost. Gondor too has paid the price of her pride and folly. Her strength dwindles, if not her courage. And perhaps adversity has taught her wisdom." Elrond certainly hoped so. "Your peoples suffer as the Dark Lord's power grows. They need their King; The Heir of Isildur, Elendil's son of Arnor and Gondor. They need you, Aragorn." His nephew's eyes widened at that and Elrond saw him swallow. "Why do you think we named you 'Hope', Estel my son?" he asked with unwonted gentleness. "You are the last hope of your people; either you reunite the Realms of the Dunedain and throw down the Dark Lord forever, or the world of Men and all of Middle Earth falls into Darkness unending. It is a great burden but one I believe you have the strength to bear."

"I hope you are right, Father." Aragorn said huskily then stood silent coming to terms with his destiny.

Elrond watched as initial fear and uncertainty gave way to determination, as he had expected they would. And then to an intense excitement he did not understand at all. "Aragorn -" he began and was cut off by a sudden rush of words from his nephew:

"I was glad when you sent for me, Uncle, for there is a matter I have long wanted to discuss with you but my courage failed me." His eyes lifted to Elrond's burning silver bright. "I love your daughter Arwen and she loves me. I know she is far above my worth but if, as you say, I will have a throne to offer her - the High Kingdom itself -"

"Aragorn - Estel!" Elrond managed to stem the flood. His nephew fell silent, watching him with half-fearful hope. Elrond was shaken as he had seldom been in all his centuries of life. Aragorn was not the first Heir of Isildur to confess a passion for Arwen. In fact they had fallen in love with her with almost monotonous regularity over the generations. But none of his predecessors had claimed she returned his love or spoken of marriage. Forcing back a sudden, terrible fear Elrond managed to speak calmly. "As to your worth, you are my own brother's child, however many generations removed, so I can hardly complain of your birth." He smiled thinly. "And as I have had the training of you I cannot justly complain of your breeding either. But you are mortal, Aragorn, and Arwen is not. That presents - difficulties."

"I know." his nephew agreed steadily, adding with a defiant lift of the chin. "There are precedents."

Elrond could not restrain a pained smile despite his distress. "Were there not neither you, nor I, nor my daughter would exist," the son of Earendil, son of Tuor and Idril, and of Elwing daughter of Dior, son of Beren and Luthien Tinuviel. "You do not know what you ask of me, son."

Aragorn sensed something of his Uncle's agony, even if he did not yet understand its cause. "It is Arwen I will ask, she who will decide," he said quietly.

"As is her right." Elrond agreed, "but not now. You are only twenty, Aragorn, too young to offer marriage or even to pledge yourself to any woman. And your education is not completed. It is time you left Rivendell and learned the ways of the Wild."

"I know." Aragorn admitted. "But I thought it only right you should know my intentions - and my hopes."

…

Aragorn left his Uncle's presence still half dazed, his impossible love suddenly become possible. In later years a foolish legend would arise that he had been brought up in ignorance of his true name and heritage. That was nonsense of course, he'd always known perfectly well who and what he was: Aragorn son of Arathorn descended in direct line, father to son, from Isildur, heir of Elendil the Tall High King of the Realms in Exile. Born of the blood of Elros Half-Elven first King of Numenor and twin brother to Elrond of Rivendell, through whom Aragorn could claim descent not only from the great Heroes of Old but from Kings of the High Elves and even one of the Holy Ainur who'd existed before time began. There was no nobler lineage among either Men or Elves.

But for all his high birth he had hitherto held himself unworthy of the hand of Arwen Undomiel. How could he ask the daughter of Elrond to share the rough and dangerous life of a Ranger chief? But the High King of the West could give her the sort of life she was accustomed to - that she deserved. Elrond was right, Aragorn had no real idea what he was asking, or of the choice Arwen would have to make. He knew nothing of the Doom of the Half-elven and death was far from his thoughts as he stood on the terrace under the stars remembering the prophecy and wondering how to make it come true.

It would not be easy he knew. His kingdom of Arnor was long fallen and the Lords of Gondor had denied the claim of the Heir of Isildur not once but twice. And if he thought of the High Kingship more as a means to win the hand of the woman he loved than as the great and solemn burden it was perhaps that was just as well. For if at the age of twenty he had seriously contemplated just how much depended on his single life, his will and his wisdom he might well have been too paralyzed with terror to ever so much as leave his chamber. As it was the optimism of youth and the added incentive of love gave him confidence. He knew he would find a way to achieve his dream and was eager to begin at once, now, that very night. He left the terrace and headed for his own quarters.

…

Elrond was still in the library, standing on a balcony under the stars, when he sensed movement behind him and turned.

Ellemir stood there, tall and grave. "Matters are more serious than we thought," she said.

"I know," he replied heavily. "Estel told me."

Her winged brows drew together in a frown. "I thought we agreed I would speak to Arwen first."

"It was he who raised the subject," Elrond answered. "I called him here to tell him of his destiny."

Ellemir's frown deepened, shading from annoyance into concern. "How did he take it?"

"Well enough." Elrond grimaced. "Until he was distracted by the prospect of a throne to offer Arwen that is."

"Distracted," Ellemir gave a small snort of amusement and walked past Elrond to sit on the stone bench set against the railing. "What else can we expect? He is young and in love - and he can scarcely ask Arwen Undomiel to share the life of a mere Chief of Rangers."

Elrond gestured dismissively. "That is not the true obstacle."

"No." Ellemir agreed, quietly. "Elrond, Arwen spoke to me of the choice of the Half-Elven." His face went grey. He steadied himself against the railing with a shaking hand, suddenly looking every one of his six thousand years old. "She bid me say she has decided nothing – yet," Ellemir continued quickly. "Aragorn will not be in a position to offer her marriage for many years. Their feelings may change -"

"Do not seek to comfort me with false hopes!" Elrond interrupted her harshly. There was a short silence between them. "I have foreseen and feared this from the day she was born with Luthien's face."

Another, longer silence was broken at last by Ellemir: "First we take your sons and now your daughter too. I am sorry, Elrond."

He sat down heavily on the bench beside her. "It is their choice to make. Just as once, long ago, it was mine."

"And you chose to be of Elven kind though you'd been raised as a Man among Men," she slanted a curious sidelong look at him. "Why?"

Elrond smiled wryly. A very personal question and one only Ellemir would have dared to ask - in this Age of the World at least. "I wanted to see my parents again." And Earendil and Elwing were in Aman where no Mortal Man might come.

Her keen eyes softened but her tone was dry; "You've been in no hurry."

"One of the advantages of immortality," he answered just as drily, "there is always plenty of time." Leaning back he looked up at his father's star, sailing high overhead. "I have had work to do here. They understand."

"I hope Celebrian will," Ellemir said bleakly. "I know the pain of losing a child. But at least I can look forward to finding Arathorn again beyond the Circles of the World. She - and you - will not have even that comfort."

Elrond bowed his head but it was not until she saw a drop sparkling like a jewel on his sleeve that she realized he was weeping. She reached for his hand and he gripped hers tightly. They sat so, beneath the rays of the star who was father to one and ancestor to the other, and together they wept for the bootless tragedy of the Half-Elven.

…..

"Arwen." She looked up from the book she was failing to read and dropped it unheeded to the floor, flying across the room and into his arms. They closed welcomingly around her but his voice sounded a little startled. "Sweetheart, what is it?"

"I missed you," she said into his shoulder.

"After a mere two hours?" his voice quivered with amusement - and something else. "You're going to have to learn to endure longer separations than that, Dearling."

"I know," she pulled reluctantly away and saw for the first time that he was dressed in the dark green cloth and leathers of a Ranger. "Estel, no! You said we had time yet -"

He put a finger to her lips, cutting her off. "We do now. And I'm not going to waste any more of it." She stared up at him bewildered as he continued earnestly; "I should have gone weeks ago, I've been delaying – selfishly - because I wanted to spend as much time with you as I could before saying good-bye."

She started to protest and he silenced her again, this time with a kiss. Her head was spinning by the time they broke apart and it took a moment for what he was saying to register.

"- I knew it was hopeless, how could I ask you to leave Rivendell for a battered old villa surrounded by an armed camp?"

"I don't care about any of that!" she interrupted fiercely.

"I do." He said firmly. "Now my uncle tells me I can offer you a throne, the High Kingdom itself, but it will take time. Prophecies don't come true by themselves they must be worked at. It will mean many years apart but with more than a few stolen weeks together at the end of them. Will you wait, Arwen?"

Looking up at him Arwen realized she'd been foolish - again. It had never occurred to her that Estel might have his own ideas about their future together, that maybe all the choices weren't in her hands.

"Arwen?"

"Of course I'll wait, as long as I must." She wasn't the one who was going to grow old and die! Her voice shook a little as she pleaded; "Try not to make it too long."

His delighted, and yes relieved, smile lit up the room. "I will return when I may, expect me at no time and any time." Another long kiss and he was gone with less sound than the breeze rustling leaves across the terrace steps.

Arwen sank bonelessly back into her chair. Ellemir was right, she did need to think long and seriously about what life with Estel would be like and to prepare herself for it.


End file.
